Kitchen & Bar

On this phone

How to get around

The bar under the name is the map. Swipe it sideways if a destination sits off-screen. On Tonight, the button pinned to the bottom cooks the lead dish.

  1. Tonight — What you can cook first, plus drinks that fit the same shelf.

  2. This week — Five dinners from the shelf, urgent things cooked first.

  3. Shelf — Edit what you actually own.

  4. Written methods — Every dish and drink with a method somebody wrote out.

  5. The pantry — Start from one ingredient: what it does, and everything built on it.

  6. Out of it — What to use instead, judged by the job the missing thing was doing.

  7. Photo review — Review a demo shelf photo and confirm every item before adding it.

  8. Flavor Lab — Pairings with a track record: classic matches and the mixology behind them.

  9. Wild cards — Combinations with no tradition behind them, only shared aroma notes.

  10. Send to Occasion OS — Prepare confirmed shelf availability for Occasion OS.

  11. The field — The gap this layer owns.

Keep it on the home screen

  1. iPhone — tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
  2. Android — open the browser menu, then Install app or Add to Home screen.

After that it opens as Kitchen & Bar, not a browser tab. Inventory stays on this device.

Substitutions · 79 dishes here use it

Out of parmesan

Salt, fat and savory depth in a form that keeps for months. The rind is not waste — dropped into a soup or a sauce it does more than the grated part does.

Everything below is judged against that job. A swap that covers it is a swap; one that only looks similar is not.

41% of the 79 dishes here that mention parmesan already list it as optional. Before you look for a replacement, check whether you are in one of them.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

pecorino romano

three quarters as much

What it gets you
The same hard, salty, grateable job, and in half the Roman dishes it is the older answer.
What it costs you
Nuance. Pecorino is saltier and sharper, so the dish needs less salt from elsewhere.

Instead · 2

grana padano

one for one

What it gets you
Very nearly parmesan. Same family, same texture, milder and cheaper.
What it costs you
The crystalline crunch and the long finish that make a good parmesan worth the money.

Instead · 3

aged cheddar or gruyere, grated fine

one for one

What it gets you
Salt, fat and savory depth in a gratin, a soup or a baked dish.
What it costs you
The ability to melt into a sauce without stringing. These cheeses pull; parmesan dissolves.
Not here
Cacio e pepe and carbonara. Those are emulsions and the wrong cheese breaks them.

Where you can just leave it out · 32

These dishes list parmesan as optional. They were written to work without it, so no ratio is needed and nothing has to be bought.

Showing 30 of 32. The rest are on the ingredient page.

Where the swap will be tasted · 24

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes parmesan a quarter of what is in the pan. Make the swap a decision rather than a repair.

Check what else is in the pan

The company parmesan keeps in this library, counted off required ingredients. A swap that argues with the top two is the wrong swap, whatever a chart says.

What to make with parmesanRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions